Comics & Narration

 

Groensteen, T. and Miller, A. (2013) Comics and narration. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi.

As comics are a new area for me to explore, I've been trying to expand my knowledge on the theoretical aspect of them. This is to broaden my understanding of why they are used, how, when and by who.

Groensteen explores innovative "currents" that blur and extend the boundaries of the medium. Challenges what makes a "comic". This includes abstract comics, digital comics and shojo manga - from mainstream to experimental.

- Gender studies, the relationship of comics to history and the representation of society, as ewll as issues raised by autobiography and autofiction.

"In the past, comics were very talkative"; the image was often submerged beneath the words and stifled by verbitage.

More contemporary artists are not afraid to give the images space, to "turn the sounnd off" and allow the reader to think on the images, hold pace, engender a visual emotion. 

"Abandonment of the dogma of uniformity of style"

- Many artists are much more experimental with format, pacing, legibility etc.

- Disrupted layouts, special effects created by digital colouring process etc.

- Modern comics tend to thrive in "the margins" - independent or alternative publishers, or well established publishers that were "late" to comics, so are less encumbered by "the weight of tradition".

- Comics produce meaning out of images which are in a sequential relationship, and which co-exist with each other spatially, with or without text. Lots of scope for experimentation..